Trella disengaged herself.
“I'm sorry,” she said. “Don't you know this, too, now: that you're not a man, but an android?”
He looked at her in astonishment, stunned by her words.
“What in space makes you think that?” he demanded.
“Why, Quest, it's obvious,” she cried, tears in her eyes. “Everything about you … your build, suited for Jupiter's gravity … your strength … the fact that you were able to live in Jupiter's atmosphere after the oxygen equipment failed. I know you think Dr. Mansard was your father, but androids often believe that.”
He grinned at her.
“I'm no android,” he said confidently. “Do you forget my father was inventor of the surgiscope? He knew I'd have to grow up on Jupiter, and he operated on the genes before I was born. He altered my inherited characteristics to adapt me to the climate of Jupiter … even to being able to breathe a chlorine atmosphere as well as an oxygen atmosphere.”
Trella looked at him. He was not badly hurt, any more than an elephant would have been, but his tunic was stained with red blood where the bullets had struck him. Normal android blood was green.
“How can you be sure?” she asked doubtfully.
“Androids are made,” he answered with a laugh. “They don't grow up. And I remember my boyhood on Jupiter very well.”